'Greenfeast' and Gooseberries

Dear Nigel,

It is a green Summer this year, I think. The constant rain of late has raised the water table and made the weeds grow in abundance. Over in the vegetable garden I am feeding an army of obese slugs with tiny salad seedlings. The petals of a newly opened clump of blue geraniums lie dashed against the ground from the last downpour. More than anything I dislike the sense of heaviness in the air before a clap of thunder releases the tension.

You have a new book out: 'Greenfeast'. I take my copy to the fireside to savour with my cup of coffee. This is a book that speaks to the way I also choose to eat these days. I have my meat days, and my meat-free days. I like both. The meat-free days make me feel generally lighter over all, as the mere idea of dieting to stay the same weight (an age thing, I'm told) fills me with abject misery.

My days in the garden are dealing with triffids as the weeds take hold. I am scything down huge branches of rhubarb and chopping them into bags for the freezer. But first, I realise, there is still a whole pile of last year's assorted produce stacked in there waiting to be used. So I make some jam. 'Gooseberry and Elderflower Jam'. This year's gooseberries are not quite ripe, so it is good to deal with last year's excess first. The recipe is a simple one and uses elderflower cordial for ease. (Lovely, I know, to go and pick elderflowers when in flower, but sometimes it is just 'another thing' which puts the whole operation into jeopardy.)

As I stand there stirring my jam, waiting for the set, I realise that it has actually been a great many years since I last made Jam. I like to THINK I make it - and at one time I made it all the time - but not lately, it seems. And elderflowers go so well in recipes with gooseberries. At the artisan bakery I used to work at we made a wonderful gooseberry cake, adding the elderflower cordial to the icing sugar instead of water to ice the top.


Gooseberry and Elderflower Jam

2 kg gooseberries
200ml elderflower cordial
1800g granulated sugar

Method:
1. Place the gooseberries in a preserving pan with 500ml water and the sugar.
2. Cook over a low heat, stirring now and then, until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Turn up the heat and boil for about 15 mins. Stir regularly so that it doesn't stick and burn.
4. Use a stack of small plates placed briefly in the freezer to check for a good set with 'the wrinkle test',
5. When it seems right to you, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the elderflower cordial.
6. Leave to cool a bit. Meanwhile sterilise your jam jars in a warm oven.
7. When sufficiently cool, decant into jam jars, place a waxed disc on top (if you have them, or make your own) and take pride in writing your Homemade labels. I did.
8.Feel virtuous.

I find my first recipe that I want to cook from 'Greenfeast'. It is 'Baked Ricotta, Asparagus.' Unusually, this year I have not over-done the British Asparagus thing. Sometimes, I think I see the small window of seasonality (May really) as a kind of call to eat, whatever else is planned; as if to refrain would mean you might be missing out in some way, be impoverished. We are children let loose in a sweet shop and sometimes we don't know when to stop.

This recipe is comfort food for a wet weather day. It is 'more pudding than souffle, but nevertheless light and airy.' There is a little thyme to remind us that it is actually the height of summer, and a sprinkling of Parmesan to gild the baked top. You opt for a tomato salad to accompany it. I am thinking that a large hunk of sourdough bread to mop up would fit the mood right now.

You were right about the tomatoes; though, as we sat there eating it I was craving a plate of fried cherry tomatoes (possibly the weather again), slightly caramelised at the edges.

Working in a Vegetarian cafe, there is always a constant tweaking of recipes to suit the season. There is nearly always a quiche on, for instance. I had made a 'Courgette, Feta and Mint' soup at home for a friend visiting us. It was both warming and light and Summery at the same time. We decided to try the three key ingredients in a quiche at the cafe. It is nice to take one idea or taste and use it elsewhere. I didn't get to try the quiche as I wasn't working that day, but normally we would be keen to try things for our own staff lunches to check that this was something we would enjoy eating and like to put on the specials board again.

Courgette, Feta and Mint Soup

10 courgettes, cut into large chunks.
4tblsp Olive oil
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1200ml vegetable stock
100ml double cream
150g feta cheese
2 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a soup pan.
2. Add the courgettes and garlic and cook over a medium heat for 20 mins. until soft and lightly browned (stir regularly), keeping the lid off the pan.
3. Add the stock and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add the mint and feta cheese, and stir over a low heat until the feta has almost melted.
5. Blend until smooth.
6. Reheat gently and add the cream. Stir well.
7. Season with salt and pepper.

Last Sunday was 'Open Farm Sunday.' We went to an organic farm near us in Hartington. Lower Hurst Farm has about 300 acres of stunning pastures, and it was good to be driven around the farm on the back of a trailer and to see all our normal haunts from a slightly different angle. The cattle there are beautiful Herefords and it all seems fairly idyllic from a farming perspective with its rolling pastures and hand-carved rocks picturing sheep and cows.

(Not that all farming around here is like that. There are many many small hill farms with 'make do and mend' philosophies; and everything tied together with baler twine. I notice this most markedly at harvest time when every tractor - however old - that ever lived and breathed, is brought out coughing and wheezing and pressed into service; along with every old farmer, his wife, grandkids and anyone else nearby.)

The main market for Lower Hurst Farm is Waitrose, and, until fairly recently, they were supplying Jamie Oliver's Restaurants with all their kids beefburgers and meatballs. My children like these beefburgers too so I buy their catering boxes to keep in the freezer at home. I think it is good for children to be able to see the animals properly cared for and having a good life. This isn't an argument for or against vegetarianism, but I do know that I like to see a countryside populated by sheep and cows and a great deal of the hills and moorlands around us are not really suited for anything but sheep.

(I took this photo and my older children joked - 'Rock on Sophie'....it's not quite Glastonbury...I remind them they were all country kids once.)

Over in the barn we watch a young girl deftly shearing a sheep. It is some kind of rare breed with almost a full clump of dreadlocks going on. There are three ladies spinning nearby and the prize bull on the other side (father of 95% of the herd) looks like he is enjoying a well-earned rest. I am fascinated to see the sheep placed back in a small pen with its lamb once more. The lamb is bleating for its mother. Even when she is in the pen - and it's a small pen - he continues to bleat for some time. He cannot seem to smell his mother now that her coat has been removed.

I am waging war, back at home, with two large crows and a Magpie. I have this very nice metal hoop arrangement hanging from the bird feeder. It has a little metal plate and a spike on which to put a fat seed ball. It looks very nice; but day after day I have turned my back for five minutes and the fresh seed ball has completely disappeared. The other day I caught the culprits in the act. A large crow was using his pneumatic beak to hammer through the ball, taking it out in quarters. I have tried tying the feeder on to the bird table with gardening wire, and tying the seed ball to the feeder with wire. I am determined not to be outwitted by this black hooded duo and their more flamboyant accomplice. My next move, I think, is to get one of those little net bags that nuts used to come in and put the seed ball in that and wire it on to the spike. One way or another they are not about to win this one.

Back to the slug patrol. I am picking the little blighters up and flinging them across the stream, presuming that they haven't been training for swimming the channel, to get back and polish off what they left behind. Gardening means war in this climate; never mind the Pimms.

Love Martha x

Little Green

Dear Nigel,

'Call her Green and the Winters cannot fade her'
                                                    Joni Mitchell

It always seems a long time coming; Spring. The long Winter nights take an age to shorten, unless you keep watch. Day on day, noting the five or ten minutes extra in the garden, or before lighting up the house. Nature creeps around with her shawl keeping out the wind - a scatter of early blossom here, a twist of little green there, on buds on the end of frondy twigs, bending to the breeze. The flowering currant is our first arrival, beckoning us out into the wasteland.

Further over by the dry stone wall, clumps of rhubarb are making headway before a random snowfall can slow them back. I am playing the old chain letter game and passing on a severed crown to Sally at work. She is in need of rhubarb, and I have enough to spare. The best kind of gardening is like this - plants passed on from friend to friend, neighbour to neighbour. At certain times of the year I can pass through the village and note the same flowers, species and type,  in every other garden. Gardening was once always like this; generously given, not hoarded and labelled, the latest purchases from the garden centre for personal enjoyment only.

Today, I am making a Vegan soup of 'Celery and Cashew' for my Meditation Teacher who has a persistent cough she can't get rid of. I like to use food as medicine when at all possible, following Ayurvedic medicinal guidelines and current nutritional knowledge. So, the celery has anti-inflammatory properties and both this and the garlic help support the immune system. My Teacher's particular constitution, under the Ayurvedic system, will welcome the cooked vegetables and the sweetness of the creamed cashews. This is a good soup to take. I make some for home, too, because it has excellent detoxing properties, always useful at this time of year when the body is sluggish, like Moley taking his first look out of his burrow at the bright daylight outside. And, despite all these worthy properties it is also, first and foremost, a very tasty soup.


Celery and Cashew Nut Soup

3tblsp Rapeseed oil (or virgin olive oil)
2 heads of celery, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
150g unsalted cashew nuts
1.5 litres vegetable stock (I use Marigold Vegan stock granules)

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a soup pan.
2. Add the celery and garlic. Cover and cook gently for 20 mins.
3. Chop the nuts finely in a food processor. Add them to the pan with the vegetable stock.
4. Cover, bring to the boil, and simmer for 30 mins.
5. Blend until smooth.

There are other signs of life appearing outside too. Small lambs are being plonked in fields after being born inside. They are bigger than the waif-like things on unsteady legs I've seen in previous years. Perhaps it was the several scatterings of snow we've had these past couple of months, or perhaps, more darkly, the rise in rural sheep crime we've seen. Only a week or so ago, a farmer just a couple of miles from me had over seventy ewes about to lamb stolen from a field near Hartington.

Kittens too are inquisitive at this time of year. Willow sits under the bird feeder looking longingly at the seed-studded fat balls and cylinder of bird seed. She wonders were the birds have all gone and why they don't want to play. The other night she stayed out all night for the first time. I tried not to worry, but by the second night it was playing on my mind. I called and called, and nothing. And then, as I passed a locked up shed and called, a single sad meow came from within. I don't know whether she will be any the less inquisitive in future, but at least I shall know where to look for her.

Although we make lots of cakes and scones at the cafe - for the mid morning and the four o'clock crowd - I'm not a huge cake lover myself. I'm more of a biscuit eater, really; although these days it is rare for me to eat either. But, one of my favourite cakes when I do bake for myself is a 'Rhubarb Crumble cake'. At this time of year with the new rhubarb about to land on our lap, it makes economical sense to do what we all should have done ages ago, dig deep in the freezer and unearth the bags of chopped rhubarb from last year's crop. Who hasn't got such a bag sitting there waiting its time? So now its time has come, and your new, delicately forced or champagne rhubarb can be gently poached and enjoyed on its own with a little yoghurt perhaps, and last year's robust main crop enjoyed in this cake.


Rhubarb Crumble Cake

175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
100g ground almonds
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
150g soured cream
300g rhubarb
3tblsp caster sugar

crumble topping:
75g cold butter, chopped
125g plain flour
75g demerara sugar.

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade.
2.Wash the rhubarb, blot dry and cut into 1" pieces.
3.Line a roasting tin. Toss rhubarb with 3tblsp caster sugar. Cover with foil. Roast for about 15 mins.
4. Uncover. Cook for 5 mins. Cool and drain off the juices.
5. Turn the oven down to 180 degrees centigrade. Grease and line an 8" loose bottomed deep cake tin.
6. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
7. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix.
8. Add the almonds, eggs, vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat well.
9. Put half the mixture in the tin. Scatter over half the rhubarb. Add the rest of the mixture and then the rest of the rhubarb.
10. Make the crumble topping in a separate bowl by rubbing the butter into the flour and then stirring in the sugar.
11. Scatter the crumble topping over the cake, and bake for 30 mins.
12. Turn down the oven to 160 degrees centigrade and bake for a further 30 mins. Leave to cool in the tin. (This cake needs to be kept in the fridge because it is moist).

Life in the vegetarian cafe where I work is busy and full-on for most of the day. See us at 4.30pm, when we all sit down together for a cup of tea, and you might be forgiven for thinking that we live the life of Reilly; but come earlier at lunchtime and you would see why we earn our cup of tea. In the midst of all this busyness, there is a small and caring community who look after and support each other constantly. Each one of us has 'issues'/family/home life problems. The great thing about the mill is that every problem is important. When I needed to change a shift because of a school inset day, someone immediately offered to swap. Some of our older cooks can't run up and down steps with hot meals, so they bake or tend to something on the stove.

At the moment I am carrying a torn tendon in my arm (which will take about four months to heal I'm told). Not working isn't really an option, so we work around it. I don't carry heavy trays back. Last week I made soda bread rolls and scones. The right hand compensates for the weak left one constantly. And yet we manage, somehow.

I think, 'Is this how it is, day in day out, for so many people in our society who have to live with their disability?' Like everything, it's not until life knocks you, yet again, that you realise truly just how much you take for granted. You can say it. You can even think it, sometimes; but how often do we really get inside those shoes and understand just what it actually means?

Of course, all this isn't much use when it comes to playing your fiddle at the pub - but then you can't have everything, I suppose.

Love Martha x

New Year - new you?

Dear Nigel,

I like to think that we are slowly moving away from the notion of draconian New Year's Resolutions in which everything good, rich and indulgent, which we have been quite happy to nibble on these past few weeks, is suddenly turfed out and deemed 'other' as we don Lycra and hit the streets running. Hopefully, for most of us, those kind of self-flagellating days are over and a new kind of balance has emerged: One that allows for holidays and celebrations and then just gently pulls things into line without guilt, like the draw string on a school PE bag, the letters of a name carefully worked in chain stitch in a contrasting silk.

You are making a 'Spiced Red Lentil Soup' to blow away the cobwebs. I am eating the leftovers from Christmas - Turkey bits with chilli jam in a sandwich and trying to find uses for all the myriad pieces of different cheeses I seem to have amassed. There is a piece of Tallegio cheese in a box by itself in the fridge which I am almost too frightened to go near...

My version of blowing away the cobwebs involves lots of Winter walks in my favourite places like the stream at Milldale. Even on dull Winter days there is plenty to see if you open your eyes. I love to see the bones of nature silhouetted against a sunset. At this time of year, before the new growth starts, you can trace the energy path of strings of ivy weaving themselves into the corrugated bark on the outside of thick trunks, or the way a young branch has twisted and turned to get towards the light or away from the wind.

It is Nature's yoga - going with the flow, bending, stretching, making room for the new through growth. As I get back to my mat again and my regular home practise and weekly Iyengar class, where repetition both embeds and creates growth, I read in your book, 'The comfort of ritual, the reassurance of the familiar, is important to me. Doing repetitive, domestic things - kneading bread, stirring soup - on the same day each year helps me feel grounded. But that repetition must be seasoned with the new. I don't ever want to stand still. That way lies a score of missed opportunities, not to mention a certain atrophy, physical, emotional and culinary.'

I am watching a whole host of younger people throwing out their whole lives in a mad, decluttering frenzy. There is a beauty in simplicity and minimalism, I agree. And the space created allows a building to breathe and the energy to flow, on feng shui principles. There is great power in the ability to let go and allow room for the new. But sometimes even this is allowed to dictate too much. Everything is thrown out in order to recreate a new you, to create a vacuum that itches to be filled. Contentment is a better place to start. Like you, there is a domestic element in this, and cleaning your space is the best place to start.

The cafe I work in was closed all this week. The staff still went in to completely clean and dust and paint and repair. On Monday, I was up a step ladder cleaning the ceilings, scrubbing the sticky residue of steam and oil and dust from hard-to-get-to places ready for painting. Next week, when I go back, I know that I will breathe more freely, feel a little lighter, move a little faster. And our homes can be like that too.

My son's fiance, Beatriz, is telling me about a small Japanese woman she saw on Netflix who helps you file your clothes, neatly folded, like vertical files. I wonder whether there is a point at which the amount of energy involved to create something so perfect becomes a chore in itself. They have a six month old baby and are short on sleep and the time to get jobs done between his needs.

It is like the perfect book I read about a Japanese monk and the cleaning routine that the monks would undertake in the temple. It was beautiful and perfect and I could feel the energy it released on every page. And yet I was conveniently making myself forget that this cleaning ritual was undertaken by a great many individuals on one building. And this made up the bulk of their daily lives.

If yoga teaches us about balance, then there must be balance in all things. A tree that only grows tall without growing deep will be upended in a storm. How often have you passed such a tree, hugely long against the grass and marvelled at the almost plate-like end of shallow roots? No one can blame the tree for this, but if we want to grow taller we would do well to tend to the things that cannot be seen as well as those that can.

In Asana (yoga) practise, I have learnt, that a stretch works two ways. Often, when you bend into a stretch like warrior pose, where one knee is bent and you point along the bended knee in both directions (hopeless depiction but I hope you get the gist), there is a tendency to do too much in one direction. This is the ego talking to you, showing pride in achievement. But much is being lost in not stretching in the opposite direction too. From a point of contentment we are able to look at things more objectively, without attachment, and hopefully make better choices....whether with your wardrobe of clothes, an improved eating plan, or any other change we might want to make.

Back in the Kitchen. I am making 'Granny's Warm Apple Cake'. I love this cake for its sheer unctuousness, the way it almost sticks to the roof of your mouth as you sink into it. It is very nice cold, but in our house we like it warm with a puddle of cream on top. It is a good choice for dark, miserable days, without smacking of the kind of over-indulgence of the last month.


Granny's Warm Apple Cake

225g self- raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
225g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
150g butter (melted)
350g cooking apples, peeled and cored
25g flaked almonds

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C
2. Grease and line the bottom of a deep 8 inch loose-bottomed cake tin.
3. Measure the flour. baking powder, sugar, eggs, cinnamon and melted butter into a bowl and beat well.
4.Spread half the mixture in the prepared tin.
5. Thickly slice the apples and pile into the tin, mainly in a heap in the middle.
6. Use two desert spoons to spoon the remaining mixture on top as best you can, trying to make sure that the middle at least gets covered,
7. Sprinkle with the almonds.
8. Bake for 11/4 - 11/2 hours until golden.
9. Eat warm with double cream. - my cure for the January blues.

The New Year brings other new beginnings with it: my first Granddaughter is born - Evie Isabella. She is, like all babies, perfect. Molly bakes biscuits to welcome the new family.

It is my son Tom's first baby and he is at sixes and sevens. I go over to help them, bringing a Shepherds pie with me, and end up taking Tom and Jayden to the supermarket to stock up on food and nappies.
'DO WE NEED MILK', I say, holding each item in front of him...he doesn't know...we should have made a list. After unloading the trolley into the car, he takes the trolley back and then opens the door of the car next to me and tries to get in (- the couple sitting in the car find it all highly amusing)...lack of sleep and the sheer enormity of it all has completely overwhelmed him.

Back home, once more, I am making a 'Butternut Squash and Parmesan Tart'. It is part of a Birthday present of home-cooked dinners for Bea, who is in an anti-stuff mode...food, hopefully, being an exception. It is a favourite of mine. Sometimes we have it hot, and in the Summer I often wrap it in foil to take on a picnic.


Butternut Squash and Parmesan Tart

200g plain strong flour
100g unsalted butter
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp water

1 red onion
400g Butternut squash
2 large eggs
6 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
400ml double cream

Method
1. Put all the pastry ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it forms a ball.
2. Chill the pastry for 20 mins.
3. Roll out and line a 23cm flan tin. Chill for 20 mins.
Put the onion (thinly sliced) and Butternut squash (cut into matchsticks) in a mixing bowl and mix well together.
4. In a separate bowl put the cream, eggs, cheese, salt and pepper and whisk well.
5. Put half the cream mixture into the flan tin. Scatter over the onion and butternut squash mixture.
6. Pour over the remaining cream mixture and bake at 170 degrees C for 35 mins, or a little longer, if necessary.


But, the food presents must wait another day as we are snowed in over night. So I freeze them to take over another time.

There is nothing for it when the weather rules but to accept it, to change ones plans, and to enjoy the new thing which has been thrown in your path.

With snow, this is easy; to go out and enjoy, to walk, to play. When there is nowhere you HAVE to be, when everyone is safely home, when the cupboards are stocked and there is wood in the woodshed, then Here, Right Now (as Ram Dass told us) is a perfect place to 'just be'.

Love Martha x